Around 72 per cent of businesses in Asia favour Asian cloud providers because they believe that Asian providers have a better understanding of the Asian business mindset.

This is according to a latest survey, “The Role of Cloud in Asia and Confidence in Asian Innovation” commissioned by Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group’s Cloud Intelligence unit.

The survey also revealed that 65 per cent of businesses in Asia have already adopted at least one technology solution from an Asian provider, and confidence towards Asian innovation in the face of the pandemic is high.

“It is very encouraging to see the high level of confidence in Asian innovation among businesses in the region,” noted Selina Yuan, President for International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

“With digitalisation so strong a trend, especially on the back of the pandemic, we believe there will be many new opportunities to build on the strong perception of the region’s cloud capabilities,” she added.

The pandemic has also led to a rise in demand for hybrid cloud solutions, and a shift in the priorities of businesses. Security has now become a main concern. Businesses in the Philippines, for example, now view a cloud vendor’s security credentials as the most important (58 percent) aspect when considering cloud adoption.

As remote working slowly becomes the norm in many businesses in Asia, many respondents believe that cloud-based IT solutions have brought about greater workplace flexibility.

“We have seen numerous companies prioritising investment in cloud-based IT solutions to enable a flexible workspace, making it the starting point of their cloud migrations,” commented Jordy Cao, General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Malaysia.

Over 1,000 participants from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and India responded to the survey.